


Tracks

by orphan_account



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Canon - Anime, Chaptered, Future Fic, M/M, Male Protagonist, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-05-04
Updated: 2000-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Fic as old as time. Oh lordy. Probably pre-2000, even, but there's no way to know now.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. The Close

**Author's Note:**

> Fic as old as time. Oh lordy. Probably pre-2000, even, but there's no way to know now.

"Gentlemen... I don't know what to say. ...It was quite a magnificent failure."

There were mutterings of agreement, weary sighs, and grim grunts from the participants.

"The question," a brisk voice said, "the question is - what are we going to do now?"

There was silence, embarrassed, contemplative, and expectant, for several minutes. And then a new voice spoke.

"I have not yet lost hope."

There were gasps and snorts, mutters and sounds of agreement and denial.

"Surely you don't mean that--"

"I have not. There may be a Fourth Impact - another chance..."

"Half the world is gone, again. It will take decades to rebuild to even a portion of what--"

"Much can be done in a short few years, enough at least, to..."

"What about the Angels? They are not coming back. As far as we're concerned they have left us to ourselves. There can be no Impact without Angels..."

"This is true. The Angels are not coming back. But we still have a few here."

Silence again filled the electrical space between the faceless communication links.

"He chose against our wishes the last time..."

"Because of the Third Child. It does not have to be that way this time. Even gods can be manipulated..."

"If it doesn't work... Another fruitless Impact would...!"

"And is this risk too high a price to pay... for immortality?"

And silence descended once more.

***

Shinji Ikari looked out of the still car's window, at the ruins of a city. He felt as if he had come full circle, and for a moment wondered if he had just fallen asleep and imagined the past year... imagined the Angels... that he was coming to this city for the first time, instead of leaving it. Coming to see his father.

Shinji covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. He had to clear his mind. The water that had engulfed the grounds then was gone. There were even fewer things upright here than there had been before... The buildings, the parks, all washed away by fire and violence and floods. It was an alien city. And his father was dead.

Shinji closed his eyes, as his mind wheeled in on itself, whirling circular motions around the emptiness, that one constant thing. All of last year - all of it - even the past month - was secondary to the huge, gaping nothingness in the place where his self was supposed to be... And for once, that felt like a comfort.

The car jumped as the faceless driver sat in it, having finished his conversation about Shinji's future with another faceless one. His cheerful comment was lost to the boy as he stared at the sunlight reflecting off the gleaming black metal of the car as it rumbled to life.

Asuka was gone, under observation in a military asylum. She would be fine - Shinji had known it from the look in her eyes when he had strangled her, his fingers burying into her neck, her body jerking slightly under his, almost as if in the throes of passion, as her air-supply diminished. He knew it from the disgust on her face when he let go, when he fell on her chest, sniffling and crying like the coward he was. She would be just fine.

And he...?

He didn't mind. Didn't mind what happened to him now. He could see his life stretching ahead of him... He didn't have his father's strength, or his mother's goodness - so pathetic... A boy who didn't even have the guts to be a bastard. His brows knit in a frown. Misato had tried to teach him how to be a man, and now Misato was dead, too. It didn't matter. He would never have learned, anyway... He would never have become what they needed him to be, what everyone wanted of him. He was too weak, too pathetic, too stupid. Just like Asuka had said.

He was a loser. And he always would be.

Wasn't that what everyone said? Wasn't that what...

The memory of a voice filled his head. 'You are fragile like glass, and that earns you my love...'

It all crashed down on him at once. He gasped, a violent tremble passing through, and his vision was quickly lost behind tears. Letting out an animalistic groan, ignoring the driver's worried question, he pulled his knees up and buried his face in his arms, rocking himself slowly from side to side as he cried. This pain went deep inside his guts like a parasite, wrenching out of his body through the convulsions and sobs. Everyone gone. Hate, pain, regret and guilt and Kaworu's face, Kaworu's face, looking at him, his eyes, looking up, looking up from where he held him, shoulders lost between the EVA's fingers, his eyes, Kaworu, Kaworu...

The crack and the pop as his head was wrenched from his body.

Shinji's sobs came open-mouthed, now, and he didn't even notice when the driver pulled the car up by the road and started talking to him anxiously, trying to make him stop, asking what was wrong. Why why why did I do it, why did I do it, he was the only one, he loved me, he loved me and I killed him!

Misato was dead. Shinji's father was dead. Asuka hated him. Rei was gone... Touji and Kensuke, gone... Blood on his hands, over and over again, the life he had crushed, Angel after Angel after Angel, all of them secret kin, all of them a mankind, each death a holocaust. And then the peace he had felt... After the pain and the suffering, when he had been like God, filled with liguid light, an equally God-like Rei astride his hips, their bodies joined together in the most primitive form of absolute unity, and around them, all of mankind feeling and thinking as one, as the divine one they had been first before they became many... And Misato's cross in his hand... Misato's... loved one's...

And so he had plunged himself back into the scornful, hurtful, base, disgusting thing that was human life... for love.

His sobs started calming down. He drew in a breath, shivering so bad he had to gasp for air. His eyes burned, but no more tears flowed. He rocked his body still as the convulsions came slowly under control. He noted, now, the relief in the man's voice. He closed puffy and sore eyes, and when he opened them again, the look in them was dead.

"I feel better now," he said in answer to something that was asked.

His solution was a simple one after all, he thought to himself as he fought the bitterness down to replace it with a comforting coldness.

Never love again.

***

Nagisa Kaworu could feel memories filling his head as he came slowly to, blinking at the wide white light of the hospital lamp above his bed.

The memories... Some of them shined above all the others, clinical-clean, clear as glass, almost artificial. Among these was the memory of the tanks filled with fluids tinged red by the blinking lights, the mindless living carcasses floating inside, his own face multiplied staring back at him with empty eyes moving in their sockets without any direction of will. He remembered wondering why his flesh, even stripped of soul, could not let memory recreate a mind, knowing his nature, knowing what the _other_ memory told him, the one beneath the artifice, the knowledge that ran in his blood. The song of the Angels. His true self.

'One of me must have died', he thought.

***

"What are we going to do about the pilot of 01?"

"He knows the full story. I think it would be safer to dispose of him--"

"He's just a child. I don't think we should--"

"A child! He cost us everything! If he'd just chosen what we--"

"It doesn't matter! We should not involve guilt in this!"

Silence.

"I refuse to let you kill him!"

"I will have no insubordination to the will of the majority in this meeting. I will not HAVE it! You, who spoke in the pilot's favour, are therefore now responsible for providing his death."

"But I--!"

"You will watch him and kill him without delay at the first sign of trouble. Do it discretely, of course. His death sentence is effective as of today, but I know we are all very busy... Therefore, take your time. But do not hesitate a moment if he exhibits signs of telling his story - if anyone gets even close to finding out what he knows..."

There was relief in the voice when it spoke. "I understand. Thank you, sir."

"Until next time, gentlemen."


	2. The Devil

It was so laughably easy, hurting people. A word or a gesture, even a look was all it took sometimes. It was because it was so easy, Shinji realized, that he had done it by accident before. He learned quickly, as he settled back into his life with the reverand and his wife, how powerful he really was.

He first noticed it when Mrs. Takamura came into his room the night he'd settled in. She spoke to him of being a hero, of how they were going to give him all the support they could, of how they would always be there if he wanted to talk about it, since it was such a burden to have gone through for someone so young.

It.

What it was he had done. She couldn't say it. You were caught in an apocalypse, you were a soldier, you had your head messed with, you were pushed to the breaking point, you were pushed to fight, to kill, and you were only fourteen.

He felt disgust fill himself, and it was a new sensation, because this time the disgust wasn't directed at himself, but at her. At that moment he despised her with all his being, and when he shot her an angry glance all that feeling must have shown on his face, because she reeled back from him in fright. She fled. Shinji was in a daze at this - how easy it had been - what an effect he had had, with just a look...

Later that night while sneaking through one of the corridors of the house he heard them talking in hushed tones in the kitchen, and he heard his own name hissed through careful lips. He pricked up his ears and listened at their worried words, at the plans they made for him, at the patience they urged each other in, and he felt his heart harden with hate.

They had no right, no right to intrude like this, to plan his feelings for him... Just let them try. He wouldn't let them close enough. He would watch them. Fight them off.

He would not be made weak again. Not by them, or by anyone else.

***

Kaworu was given quarters, clothes, food, and very little information. Somehow, as he sat down by the long empty table with his tray of food after being told by one more official that they were not permitted to speak to him, he felt that the board was still out trying to decide what and how to tell him about what had happened to his earlier self. So as he ate, he remembered.

The last memory he had from before was being led into the recording room after having thumbed through a memo that had been lying across Lieutanent Ishikawa's desk, including the files of the other EVA pilots. He had an inkling that the memo was intended for him to read only after the memory-recording; so that, were he to learn something he wasn't supposed to know, the new him would not remember.

Kaworu had an excellent memory. One art SEELE hadn't so far mastered was the minute manipulation of specific memories. He remembered thinking that knowing the files might come in useful.

His other memory was excellent too...

SEELE wanted to bring about Human Instrumentality. This much was obvious. The breakthrough of their ambitions had been about to come into being just before the last recording Kaworu could remember... He was being sent to NERV to serve as the Fifth Child, a replacement to the mind-raped Souryuu Asuka Langley. There had been only two more Angels to go before Instrumentality would have been achieved. Himself... and Humanity.

He had a feeling that the plan had outfolded, and that he had chosen in favour of humanity. That would mean the Third Impact was already over... and that SEELE now wanted to bring about the Fourth with his help.

He wondered briefly what had made him choose for humanity. He had considered his options often, and had never been able to find good reason not to implement Human Instrumentality... He had been looking for a sign, all the way to the end, some reason to do or not do as SEELE wanted him to do.

Apparently he'd found one.

Right then Kaworu decided, sign or no, he would never create the Fourth Impact, no matter what SEELE had planned for him. If a former him had found something important enough to die for, he would trust that former self's judgement.

He put down his fork and knife, pushed his tray aside, and stood up. Putting his hands in his pockets, he turned to the guard and smiled. The guard's eyes widened a little under Kaworu's red-eyed, knowing gaze.

"I'll be leaving now. Thank your superiors for the food and clothes."

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave," the guard said, feeling a little nervous. He'd heard stories...

"I'll go anyway." Kaworu started walking towards the exit.

The guard reached his hand to grab the boy's skinny shoulder. A pain shot through his arm, and he let out an inadvertant yelp. Kaworu continued on his way without so much as missing a step. The man reached for his weapon, then thought better of it. Trembling, he watched the boy walk out.

He had an inkling no-one else would stop him, either.

***

The first thing Kaworu found was a fake identity; the second, a job. This took him three days. During those days he just wandered the streets, learning about the sides of human life he had had little chance to study before...

Once, during his training, he had been taken to the city nearby and left on his own for five hours. The intent had been to see how he would react to the world; to teach him what the world of humans was like. And he had learned; from the hookers and the waiters, the old men in the streets and the families holidaying in the park. He had learned much that he had later based his thinking on.

He had been five years old at the time...

Since he had no place to stay, Kaworu never slept. He worked at a café at first, then moved to his second job as a runner at a newspaper building, and later to his third as an apprentice mechanic. As it was easier to raise money when you didn't eat, so he stopped doing that, too. After he got a small one-room apartment at the less reputable area of the city, he quit the café and the running jobs, and began to concentrate on working his way up the employment ladder in the repair shop, revealing more and more of his extensive knowledge of machines, just enough not to get anybody suspicious. And then he went back to school.

He passed the entrance exams with flying colours and entered the records of Kyoto High School as Souryuu Kaworu, orphaned at fifteen, a former resident of the destroyed Neo-Tokyo.

From then on, it was a breeze.

***

It was February, 2018, and Ikari Shinji was seventeen.

The chilly rain beat a steady rhythm against the rusty steel bicycle shelter, accompanying the whistling north-wind, as the four boys huddled close together among the bikes, hands cupping cigarettes, savouring the quick warmth of a lighter's fire against their palms. Shinji breathed in the smoke thankfully, the familiarity wafting through his lungs a small bliss. Shinji didn't like needing things, and he'd been needing a cigarette all morning.

Some part of him realized that it was mostly a stupid, pointless habit, but a cigarette had been one of the first things he'd shared with his new friends. The boys, each face long and haughty, each too cool to wear hats or warm clothes in the freezing weather. Shinji himself was one of the few who really didn't care - he welcomed the rain on his bare neck, the wind blowing through his clothes. Cold was a comfort, as was the cigarette, as was the pleasant knowledge that he didn't really care for his so-called buddies, those sad boys with all their excuses for unhappiness. Shinji had his own excuses, and thought them better than anyone else's.

Superiority. This too had been a new thing, once he had noticed he possessed it; having finally disattached himself emotionally from others, it became easy to notice how pathetic everyone else was. None of them had killed Angels, for one. Very few of them had had the same strength as Shinji did, to kill, to hate, to disconnect. And, Shinji was certain, if they could, they would do the same as he did. He was... happy. Strong. Liberated. He liked himself.

"Man I hate this..." Aiba Mitsuru grumbled. He was a mean-natured, impatient boy with an impressive build, hard-won at the local gym. "That fucking Kuroi-sensei. Can't go home now, just cause that bitch doesn't like me."

Shinji allowed his attention to wander from the faces and troubles of his friends and flow thoughtfully over the empty school yard. He remembered that they had just gone from skipping the history class to skipping the lunch-hour, a thing the others didn't seem to notice. As his eyes trailed over to the driveway down the hill from the school building, to the open gates, he noticed the figure of a young man entering the school grounds, walking beside his bicycle.

Somebody's even more late for class than us, Shinji mused...

Silver hair ruffled in the wind. Shinji frowned as his eyes followed the boy's journey across the yard. He hadn't seen silver hair on a young person since...

He felt a sharp blow on his shoulder. "Yo, Ikari, checking out the sweet meat?"

Shinji turned back to face Aiba's smirk. "Man, you were totally ogling at that guy!"

"Fuck off," Shinji retorted, bored, leveling him with a cold stare. He put his cigarette back to his lips.

"Hello," a voice said, and the boys all turned to face the confident smile and red-tinged eyes of the silver-haired boy. "Mind if I park my bike...?"

Aiba's look of surprise melted into another delighted smirk and he leaned his arm on Shinji's shoulder. "Well, hello..." He turned to look at Shinji. "Do you two wanna room right now or...?"

What he saw on Shinji's face cut him off. The boy was staring at the newcomer, eyes wide open and face paling rapidly.

"Ikari?"

The silver-haired young man's smile faded a little and his eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.

Shinji's throat felt dry, and a large part of him wanted to run away, but instead he just took a step back, and croaked a name.

Red eyes grew wide in recognition and the smile returned, stretching into a grin. "You are..."

At that point, Shinji did turn and run.

He slammed the bathroom door shut so violently it nearly flew off its hinges. He leaned on a sink, his legs nearly giving out. After a moment, he looked up into the dirty mirror, into his own eyes, pinpoint pupils under soggy dark hair.

For the first time in three years, he saw fear on his own face.

There was a crash as the door flew open once more, and his friends entered. Aiba stepped in first, flanked by Takeo, and Shinji could see Keiji behind them glancing in before the door fell closed. Standing guard.

Shinji collected himself quickly, and faced Aiba with his trademark couldn't-care-less glare. It had been a stupid reaction, anyway. Kaworu was dead. That guy outside was just... just someone else. "What's your problem?"

"I don't like faggots," Aiba hissed. "Haven't I told you that?"

"About every time you open your fucking mouth," Shinji growled. Aiba also didn't like women, foreigners, teachers, or just about any group of people aside from himself. Much like Shinji, except that Shinji didn't differentiate between the people he hated. "What's that got to do with anything? What's Keiji guarding the door for?"

"I think you're one, that's why," Aiba hissed.

Shinji snorted loudly. "That's the stupidest--"

Before he had a chance to continue the sentence, Aiba's fist connected with his stomach.

Shinji had just enough time to recognize the taste flooding his mouth as blood before his knees buckled and he fell. 'Stupidest is me, thinking he needs an excuse.' The thought flashed through his mind between the first blow and the next. After that, the world phased out, and impact after impact seemed to turn time into an eternity of few short moments.

It happened so quickly. As if it wasn't really happening.

There was a flash of light...

The last thing Shinji remembered before everything went black was feeling a body falling across him, and an Angel standing over him.


	3. Restart

The bright white light trickled through his eyelids and into his consciousness. Shinji blinked quickly, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. Memories flooded his head as he recognized the scent of a hospital.

No... Not a hospital. Almost, but not quite.

Carefully this time, he opened his eyes, and found himself bounced by a throbbing ache on his head. Next he noticed the soreness on his side, and then on his leg.

Fuck.

"You awake?"

Shinji turned his head to stare dully at the school nurse.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me any names," Nurse Shimura continued sourly.

"I'm fine," Shinji said and moved to sit up. Pain shot through him and he fell right back, gasping for air.

"Indeed." Shimura agreed grimly. "And until you get from fine to better you'll stay here. At least for the rest of the day."

"Fuck you," Shinji said sourly.

"Not in your condition."

Shinji gave Shimura an odd look. He just had to wonder about her sometimes.

Shimura walked over to the curtain and pulled it to cover the bed Shinji was laying on, which was one of two in the nurse's office. "You'd better get some sleep," she said.

Shinji was about to protest, but Shimura just slipped out from the covered area, leaving him alone. Shinji sighed, and closed his eyes just for a moment.

Two hours later he awoke to the low sounds of conversation.

"...couldn't get in touch with them before four. Told them he's sleeping. They'll pick him up in an hour..."

Oh man. Shinji frowned. So Mr. and Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou had been notified their errant adopted son had got into a fight and got his ass kicked...

"Is he still asleep?"

Shinji's eyes flew open at the sound of that quiet voice.

Couldn't be. Not... Not him. It couldn't really be...

Shinji remembered those red-tinged eyes, that simple smirk that had a shade of good-nature challenge when its wearer was cautious, and a shade of gentleness when friendly, and a shade of hidden joy when...

It could not be anyone else.

He tried calling his name, but the sound came out as a raspy cough.

The conversation outside stopped. Through his own dry breathing, he heard steps, and a door; and then the rattle of iron rings as the curtain was pulled.

Shinji was tired of second-guessing. Ice broke inside him, and a riverful of repressed emotion rushed through him in one huge tidal wave.

He drew a shivering breath.

"Kaworu-kun..."

***

Nurse Shimura closed the door behind her, and released her breath, finally allowing her excitement on her face, even if for just a moment. She grinned happily. This was amazing. This was...

She collected herself hurriedly, repressing her joy once more, and strode through the empty waiting room to the similarily empty hallway, hurrying down to the computer lab.

Which was also empty. Good. She had no time to waste.

Log in. The other password. Personal mail. A single series of numbers. Log out.

Then she waited.

It wasn't long; maybe fifteen minutes.

"Well?" he asked from behind her.

She turned her chair around, and smiled. "You better double-check from the surveillance cameras, but I think you're going to just love this..."

***

Kaworu sat wordlessly on the side of the bed, slowly absorbing what he saw on the face of this unfamiliar boy. So open, all of a sudden... and the shock earlier... One of him had met one of Kaworu, and more, obviously.

And he wasn't totally unfamiliar, either. This was one of the EVA pilots whose pictures Kaworu had seen; three years older now. So this was someone who had known that other self of Kaworu's.

Briefly the memory of Kaworu's other bodies flickered through his mind. Watching his own head explode again and again, torn flesh floating in the ooze, empty eyes staring still as he made sure he was the last one of him SEELE would ever make. This boy was tied up with all this... Possibly dangerous... but...

Kaworu had never seen that look on anybody's face before, but he felt like he recognized it. It was like being thirsty for a drink he'd never tasted. He wished the boy would never stop looking at him.

"Ikari Shinji."

The boy's eyes grew confused, he shook his head. "No, no... Shinji-kun. That's what you call me... It is you, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's me," Kaworu replied.

"But you... died..." The boy's face twisted in pain. So innocent... "I saw it..."

Kaworu decided to risk it. "A dummy plug," he said, impulsively closing his hand over Shinji's. "A clone... I don't remember you. I'm sorry," he added softly.

Shinji stared at their hands, and drew a shivering breath. "It is you..." he whispered. "It is you." He choked. And started crying.

Kaworu let go of Shinji's hand and reached out to run his fingertips across a moist cheek. "You... haven't cried in a while, have you...?"

He could feel the shudder that touch caused in the lithe seventeen-year-old. The boy drew a breath, his lower lip disappearing as he bit on it to suppress his tears, and turned hazy eyes to Kaworu. Frightened and longing.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked, voice breaking, and raised a hand to wrap chilly fingers around Kaworu's wrist. "You... you're always smiling..."

"I smile because you're beautiful," Kaworu replied, the answer quick. And true. He only had to look at this boy, and he knew.

He remembered the picture of a fourteen-year-old EVA pilot he'd seen in a file years ago. This was different. A picture was just a picture; particles of light bouncing off a surface. Looking at the boy's face, so open, that weak bruised figure, he finally understood the actions of that other him. This was why he had chosen to preserve humanity as it was.

Such a creature...

Fragile, the boy was, like porcelain. So many small ways erosion could set in the stone of his being, so many ways to crack that shell of his, so many ways to hurt or heal once you got inside. And still, beyond all that...

He could see it, like the crackle of almost telepathic union flowing between them when they touched. The strength. Pain, and survival from pain... That was strength. Just not stopping. For survival, even when you don't want to survive.

To imagine Angels better than humans... It made Kaworu want to laugh.

Instead he just smiled at the beauty, and brushed a drying tear from Shinji's face.

***

"Gentlemen... Good news and bad news."


	4. The Fall

"Please consult the memos I just sent through."

A pause.

Pleased. "You call this bad news?" Joyful, even. "Finally, it's him! After so long!"

"But consider the situation. This is an Angel we are talking about, sir. And remembering the effect of their last encounter..."

"We will intervene, we will clear the boy's memory, and obtain enough genetic material to start over again. And this time, there will be no mistakes."

"I knew, gentlemen, if we waited, we would have the chance again. I knew it!"

"Observe them. Move in at the earliest opportunity, but don't rush. We can't afford to lose him this time."

***

"I could carry you."

"Kaworu!" Shinji huffed, shoving the other boy aside. "I'm not a girl."

A chuckle. "No, but you've got a fractured leg," Kaoru remarked, amused.

Shinji let go of the bedstand and took an experimental step.

"Oww..."

Kaworu buried his hands into his pockets, smiling. "The crutches are in a locked closet. If you waited till Nurse Shimura comes back, you could get those."

Shinji gritted his teeth, and took another step. "Look, will you let me bunk at your place or not? You know Shimura'll call the Takamuras, and that will be it..."

"Why don't you want to go home?"

Shinji gave him a bitter, determined look. "Because they're assholes. And I don't want to see them tonight." He turned away and took another painful step towards the door. "And they ask questions..."

Kaworu took one of Shinji's hands into his own. Shinji's eyes widened in surprise and the pain of pressure disappeared as he felt himself soar into the air.

"Better?" Kaworu asked, smiling at him from below.

Shinji gasped, moving his legs in the air, a foot above the floor. Flying... A feeling of weightlessness, of lack of control... It was... wonderful.

Kaworu laughed, and Shinji descended, hovering an inch in the air. The silver-haired boy raised his hand to run fingers through Shinji's hair. Shinji started, but didn't move away; instead, he froze and blushed fiercely.

Kaworu's eyes and smile grew gentle. "We can fly all the way to my place, if you'd like. Up through the clouds... No one would know..."

A warmth rushed through Shinji, and he knew he was blushing like a girl but didn't mind. He remembered that look, and he remembered that kind of touch, and the few shy, guilty, wonderful moments of intimacy that passed between them in the dark of the night. For just one night. Just... being close to each other... closer than was normal, but it didn't matter, because it had felt so right, even as it made him ache inside.

Shinji frowned, and wrenched himself away from the touch. "We need to get out of here."

Kaworu nodded.

Fifteen minutes later, Shinji held onto Kaworu's waist, shivering slightly, soft rain made harsh by the wind beating against his flesh as Kaworu speeded through the streets on his bicycle. And a half-hour later they stumbled into a one-room apartment, soaked and still compensating for Shinji's injuries.

Shinji felt himself rise in the air again, and was floated gently through the room to sit on the single bed as Kaworu walked over to the closet and started rummaging through it.

Shinji had had time to think. To compose the sentence he would use to ask that question he needed to ask, now, as soon as possible, before it was too late and he would either be too happy just to be relieved of his crime of murder or Kaoru would be gone again, inexplicably, like a dream. He had composed his question ten or fifteen times, and forgotten them all, left with nothing but the cold of repressed adrenalin. And rage.

"Here," Kaworu said, fishing out a set of grey pants and a T-shirt, and throwing them on the bed next to Shinji. "We don't want you catching cold to top off those bruises..."

"Why'd you do it?"

"Hm?" Kaworu said, turning. And his smile disappeared at the anger he suddenly saw.

"Why everything?" Shinji growled. "You lied to me, made me kill you, used me, made me trust you, all that shit. I just wanna know why. If you knew me so well, why'd you still have to..." Rage tightened his throat.

"Shinji..."

"You don't know how many times I've wondered about it, trying to make sense... You... fucking BASTARD!!"

"Shinji-kun!" Before Shinji even fully realized the other boy had moved at all, he was there, hugging Shinji tightly.

His heart ached. It hurt so much, too much. It had been hurting for such a long while.

He hated his weakness. He hated the fact that he still felt like crying. He hated the cold edgy hatred itself, the thorns inside, so bad, so dirty, and he hated its intensity. Cold, he wanted to feel cold, but he couldn't. He felt warm.

"Gods..." Shinji gasped, and grabbed Kaworu tightly. "I'm so sorry!"

"Shh..." Kaworu just held onto the warm body, even more tightly as it started jerking with sobs, petting the soft brown hair. He wasn't smiling anymore.

It hurt him too.

"Don't cry... Shinji-kun... I love you."

Shinji let out an angry groan, and punched Kaworu's chest weakly. "B-bastard...!!" He couldn't help it, he just cried more fiercely.

"Do you hate me?"

"Yes!"

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't... Oh gods..." Shinji pushed Kaworu away, grabbing his collar angrily. Just as angrily, he brought his face up to Kaworu's and kissed him, quick and violent and grating.

***

It wasn't so bad, hating everybody. It was kind of comfortable. It took Shinji a while, as he lay quietly under Kaworu's arm thinking of these things, to figure out that with all his advertised misery Shinji had actually been dodging pain all along.

Hating... was safe. He'd forgotten why he'd started it. How much it hurt to love.

A few left-over tears escaped his eyes. Kaworu noticed it, languidly catching one salty drop with his lips.

It was so easy. So easy it was scary. Before you knew it, you were in, and that person was just so precious, much more precious than the frightening, monstrous thing that was your feeling for them. It wasn't love that Shinji was in love with. That was the bad part. That was why he couldn't get away.

At least... at least Kaworu was here.

That would make it all better. In time. Or just for now.


	5. Released

"Going in."

***

The door crashed in. It was all movement and shouts and sudden pain as Shinji's injured leg bounced against the edge of the bed. Kaworu was already sitting up. A red glow swelled and tingled through the room. It coalesced at the doorway, a bright red wall pushing against the meat that struggled to break in.

A woman's shrill voice. "They've got it blocked!" Shinji finally managed to sit up, gasping, and saw the remains of the door hanging from the frame, braced strangely against nothing in midair, and behind them the black-suited group in the hallway. Shinji's eyes widened in bewilderment at the sight of the woman in front.

"...Shimura?"

"I was afraid of this," Kaworu said grimly, watching as two men released a shotgun blast at the AT Field. The blast reflected into the wall behind them. Shimura shrieked outrage, the men backed off, bleeding and cursing... "They've had you under surveillance. I have to go." He stood up.

"Wait!" Shinji struggled to stand up as well. "You're gonna run? Where? Who...?"

Kaworu turned, giving Shinji a quiet little smile. "Yes. Away. SEELE." He hesitated for a moment, and his smile disappeared. "I don't want to leave you, and I don't want to die," he said gently. "But what do you wish?"

Shinji fell silent in shock.

Shimura barked orders for surrounding the room's exits.

...He wanted to tell Kaworu so many things. About some of the horrible things he'd done to people, how he'd treated them, what a monster he'd become. How something was awake within him now that he didn't completely recognize, that wasn't the confused fourteen-year-old or the cold bastard he had been, that was something, someone with hope. Something strange to him. And he wanted to tell him how thirsty he was for redemption, how it sickened him to know what he'd done and how he wasn't sure he deserved to become anything else anymore. To be someone else. To have a chance. He wanted to tell Kaworu these things, and more, but there was no time.

So he simply chose.

***

Ohtaka didn't really know what they were doing there. Grunts weren't always told everything. The rumour had it, they were collecting a misplaced experiment. Remembering the further rumours of his employers' experiments, Ohtaka figured, it could be anything. He clutched his rifle protectively and nailed his eyes to the door he was assigned to guard.

And so it was somebody else's cry that first caused him to glance up to see the most beautiful sight he could remember ever having seen in his life.

Shining white, like a piece of living sun, trailing wispy tails of light like wings behind it, a slim human-shaped figure burst through the third-floor window straight above, hovering between earth and sky for the tiniest moment. Ripple, movement, purity - the beauty was not earthly. Ohtaka relived moments he didn't remember, during the catastrophe, shining white, a thing beyond individual consciousness...

Then the light bounced, streamed into the sky, and the moment was over - the figure lost into distance like a mirage.

Nobody fired a single shot.

It was only later, after his tears had dried, that Ohtaka was able to remember the darker shape clutching the light.

***

"No sign of either of them?"

"It's been six months, sir. If they live, they are not in Japan. They are not anywhere so far as we can tell."

"Did you check for bodies found?"

"...Yes. Everything. Should we continue?"

"Of course! All this time has passed, all this work, this pain... We will go on... We'll go on until we die, and then others will take our place! There is nothing more important than this work."

"Yes there is."

"...What?"

"I'm sick and tired of this game. We've been looking for immortality and forgotten to live. I have two grandchildren. They are all the immortality I need."

"Insubordinance! Sir, you are the most..."

"Shut up, you old fart. I'm going home. I'm going home, and I'm going to sit outside for a while, and listen to the birds. Maybe I'll go for a walk later. It's a lovely day outside."

A communication link died.

Silence.

"He's right."

Another comm link died.

"S-stop!"

"Too late."

Another died, and another. And another.

Until only one light blinked in the darkness.

"Anybody?"

***

Is there any way we can repay for our sins except by punishing ourselves?

Is it salvation not to be hated by others?

Is it redemption to apologize?

What reveals us to ourselves over and over again until nothing but nakedness exists, until knowledge and innocence are not at war anymore?

Can I just fly and be free?

I don't know.

I know my shackles and my chains; I know what I drag with me; throwing it away I will find no release.

Forgetting them I will find no release.

Fighting them I will find no release.

Everyone I wronged live within me.

I chose to repay it all to just one.

And I released myself.


End file.
